


Take the gift and set them free

by fulldaysdrive



Series: Do you hear the whalesong? [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Young Wizards - Diane Duane
Genre: Deep Wizardry, Gen, I am so sorry, Les Amis are now cetaceans, The Song of the Twelve, also wizards, and endless pain, deep pain, my first proper fic in either of these fandoms and it's this, rated T for blood and violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-22
Updated: 2015-07-22
Packaged: 2018-04-10 15:00:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4396385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fulldaysdrive/pseuds/fulldaysdrive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>T'haiir is not a martyr. He's not willing to die for the rest of the Sea, and especially not for the humans. But he is willing to die for his friends. For Aaannsholye. And for the Song, that's enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take the gift and set them free

The battle raged around them.

In every direction T'haiir sang into the murky darkness of these awful depths, all the pictures that came back were of combat. The Celebrants of this particular Song were among the best wizards in the Sea, fierce fighters all, but the krakens were many and the onslaught seemed unending. F'yeee, K!f!k!, and M’riiooos were leading offensive strikes at the edges of the protective circle, while Ep'h'Niinh and her brother Roaashh stayed near the middle to defend. M'seekh!ta and B'sooee were guarding J'liii from the sharp beaks of giant squids as he cast a spell to heal a nasty gouge on Bh'riihl's side, even as Bh'riihl sang the Gray Lord's refusal of the Strange Whale's offer. It was a great effort, and needed; having used his great bulk and strong teeth to batter and rip countless opponents to pieces as they'd descended to the Sea's Tooth, the sperm whale was starting to flag.

They all were, really. It felt like days since they'd last seen the surface of the water.

“Watch _out_ , T'haiir!” Ep'h'Niinh's warning interrupted his thoughts, and he quickly dodged out of the way of a tangle of grasping suckered arms.

“Thanks,” he gasped, as the orca swam quickly past him to tear his would-be attacker into shreds with her great teeth.

“Don't mention it.” The tone of her song grew urgent. “T'haiir, Aaannsholye needs to sing.”

“What?” Bh'riihl had finished his part, which meant it was time for the next group singing. “But what about the battle song —”

“T'haiir, look around us. We are already _in_ a battle. I don't know how or why these things managed to make their way in, but what's important is that _he needs to sing_! Find him, T'haiir!” Ep'h'Niinh commanded, before she darted away out of sight, gone before he could say something sarcastic about how great a help he'd be, since he could barely do anything to protect _himself_ , much less help a humpback.

 

_“I want to come along,” T'haiir had insisted. “To watch the Song.”_

_“Why?” J'liii slowly turned over, a confused look in his eyes. “I thought you didn't care about wizardly things.”_

_“It's important to all of you, though. I just... I want to be there.”_

_“You've seen the rehearsals,” M'seekh!ta said. “It won't be too different from that.”_

_“Well, except for being in the deep where most whales shouldn't go, let alone tiny dolphins,” B'sooee interjected. “Even with the spells to help with the pressure, it won't be pleasant, T'haiir. And also, uh.” He caught sight of Aaannsholye swimming by them, and feebly waved a fluke, trailing off._

_When the humpback passed once again out of hearing, J'liii said, “It'll also be dangerous. It's pretty much a given that there'll be some... interference. Also I don't know if Aaannsholye would be happy having to account for an extra in the spelling.”_

_M'seekh!ta snorted out a few bubbles, running out of patience. “Oh come on. He doesn't have to know, and T'haiir's small enough that the extra air won't be much of a hardship. Let the tiny dolphin come. Just,” she glanced at T'haiir, “if things get fraught, try to stay out of the way. Maybe stick close to Bh'riihl.”_

 

Well, now that the situation had soured, he felt spectacularly foolish, as well as out of place. And Aaannsholye was nowhere to be seen; likely he already knew what had to be done. T'haiir wasn't exactly sure _how_ Ep'h'Niinh thought he could help Aaannsholye in any way. Loathe to ignore her orders, however, he swam this way and that, singing short bursts in all directions, trying to see past the haze of ink and thrashing of bodies everywhere.

 _Where_ are _you? Let me find you, so I can somehow help keep you alive until you—_

And then he heard it, Aaannsholye singing his first few lines, the notes coming faintly through the water.

“Sea, hear me now—”

T'haiir rushed desperately through the fray towards the voice, towards the Silent One.

The stray thought came again, as it often had recently, of the utter absurdity that was the title of the "Silent One" being taken by the whale with the strongest, most resonant voice in the entire Sea—

 

_“T'haiir, the Silent One's mastery is of those without voices of their own,” the humpback had said sternly, his song going high in annoyance. “This is everything I have ever wanted to be.”_

 

 _Ridiculous_ , he thought for the millionth time in the last few lights-and-darks, willing the memory away with impatient anxiety. The voice broke off suddenly, and he swam faster. There. Over by an outcropping of coral — and T'haiir was willing to bet that it might even be the same bit or near enough to the original bit of razor coral that the first Silent One swam into, because of course Aaannsholye would try to play his part as perfectly as he could — he could see the humpback, entangled in the tentacles of a giant squid, struggling madly to break free.

“Aaannsholye!” He hurtled towards them, pummeling into the squid's mantle, aiming for one of its great eyes. The thing gave a shrill shriek of outrage but did not release Aaannsholye, though the latter tried valiantly to twist from its grasp.

“T'haiir?!” The humpback's voice was shrill with shock. “You're not — What are you _doing_ here?!”

“I came to help!” He rammed at the squid again, to no avail. “I wanted to be here with you!”

“It was _you_.” There was an indecipherable note in Aaannsholye's voice that made T'haiir back away and look at him. “I'd wondered why there was something funny about the equations — your coming along must have thrown them off somehow. That's why the circle failed and these _things_ — ” he writhed furiously “ — got in!”

T'haiir went cold with horror.

It was his fault. If he hadn't insisted on coming, the spell circle would still be intact and Aaannsholye would be singing. The Song was at risk of falling apart, all for his selfishness.

“I-I'm sorry,” he cried. He didn't know what else he could say. For once in his life, words failed him.

“Sorry isn't going to help,” Aaannsholye roared. “Help me get out of these — ”

“I can't!” T'haiir almost sobbed the words, even as he geared up to try again to loosen the kraken's hold on his friend. All he was doing was bruising himself. He was beginning to ache, all over. “I'm too small, I can't do anything, I can't, I tried! I'm sorry! I — ”

At a loss, T'haiir drew back, trying to figure out what to do next, cursing his stupidly small size, making another wish among uncounted others that he had been born an orca, or some kind of baleen whale, _something_ of significant bulk that could actually have a literal _impact_ — he stopped. Impact to do what? Free Aaannsholye, so he could play his part and die anyway?

Aaannsholye didn't deserve to die.

 

_“There's so much more you could do,” T'haiir had argued. “Someone else can be the Silent Lord, please, Aaannsholye—”_

_“I thought you said none of the things I wanted to do mattered,” the humpback whale replied archly._

_“But at least you'd still be around to try!”_

_“There are very few things that matter more than the Song, T'haiir,” Aaannsholye said. “For the sake of the Sea and all in it, it's a sacrifice I'm happy to make.” His gaze grew judgmental, as it usually did when it fell upon the small dolphin. “If you were a wizard, you would understand.”_

 

T'haiir wrested his gaze away. He hung back. All around them, the battle continued to rage. The Celebrants, his friends, were all still fighting, trying to keep the spell circle from being overcome, to give Aaannsholye time to finish his part.

The ocean floor began to tremble. T'haiir could feel the vibrations in the water; alarmed, he glanced around, and his gaze was drawn to the base of the Sea's Tooth, which was  _teeming_ with krakens.

Time was running out. The Silent Lord's part had to be sung, and quickly. T'haiir saw Aaannsholye finally manage to ram his head into his assailant's eye, stunning it, but not enough to make it let go of him. And though they were still within the boundaries of the circle, they were all so far from the others, too far away for them to help in time, and T'haiir couldn't _do anything_ and he could feel the water, disgustingly murky with ink and blood, growing warmer.

Blood. He looked frantically around, caught a glimpse of a large white shape above — yes. The Master Shark was close. He shuddered, the sight sparking another memory.

 

_“The key part of the Song is the Silent One's sacrifice,” B'Faiire had told him. “The most successful Songs have all been where the Silent One died gladly.”_

_“Aaannsholye says it's the role he was born to sing. It's like he_ wants _to be eaten by a shark.”_

_“If it will save countless lives, Aaannsholye would let himself be eaten twice over.” B'Faiire sounded fond._

That's why he's a wizard and I'm not, _thought T'haiir. He could imagine giving his life for his friends, but for the whole Sea? And for the humans on land with their pollution and filth and their whaling boats and —_

 

A willing sacrifice. It may not be made for the sake of every living creature in the Sea, but if it would save his friends — if it would save Aaannsholye, who had so many grand ideas and plans to make things better — that had to count for _something_ , didn't it?

 _Maybe it won't be so bad,_ he thought to himself, _I'm small enough that the Master Shark probably doesn't even have to chew._ Finally, an advantage to being one of the tiniest cetaceans on the planet. Surprisingly, the thought _did_ give him a little comfort.

T'haiir turned and made for the coral.

He wasn't a wizard. He never swore the Celebrant's Oath, did not pledge himself to the Song. The Sea didn't speak to him, couldn't feed the lyrics into his mind —

But he had attended every rehearsal of the Song. He had listened to Aaannsholye sing his part more than once. By now, T'haiir knew the words by heart.

T'haiir could finally, finally do something to help, and Aaannsholye might not have to die.

He picked up from where Aaannsholye had left off, when the kraken had interrupted him.

“Lone Power, I accept your Gift!  
Freely I make death part of me;  
By my acceptance it is bound  
into the lives of all the Sea —”

The words came out weak and squeaky, nothing like the strong beautiful tones of Aaannsholye's whalesong. Frustration warred with determination. He could do this.

“T'haiir?!” He could feel Aaannsholye's confused and incredulous gaze upon him, and he turned slightly and saw that the humpback had gone still. “T'haiir, what are you —”

“There's no time,” he sang back.

“T'haiir, you can't! You —”

“I can, if it's for you!” The shaking of the sea floor intensified. “There's no time,” T'haiir repeated. “Please, Aaannsholye, I can do this! Please let me do this!”

“You're not a wizard!”

“And you are! The Sea _needs_ you, don't you know that?” _You're so_ ridiculous, _being willing to die when you have so much more to give, so much more to do!_ “Please,” he sang urgently, once again, “permit me to take your place!”

He couldn't decipher the look in Aaannsholye's eye, didn't have the energy or the willingness to comprehend that anguish warred with pride for a brief moment before the humpback sang a quick sharp note, and T'haiir didn't know the wizardly Speech but somehow he thought he understood the word —

He felt a sudden power fill his body. Aaannsholye had given him his consent, and along with it, his strength. Emboldened, he sang, a strong, clear note that rang through the water all around them.

“Yet what I do now binds to it  
a gift I feel of equal worth:  
I take Death with me, out of Time,  
and make of it a path, a birth!”

T'haiir didn't know he could sound like this. He had _never_ sounded like this. His body thrummed with each word. Was this what wizardry felt like? This quiet exultation as it seemed like the Sea itself was listening to each note he sang?

“Let the teeth come! As they tear me,  
they tear Your ancient hate for aye —  
— so rage, proud Power! Fail again,  
and see my blood teach Death to die!”

On the last triumphant note, he looked back at Aaannsholye. He gave him one last cheeky delphine smile before he turned and hurled himself, at full speed, into the coral.

 _Blood in the water I sing_ , was his final irreverent giddy thought.

**Author's Note:**

> A ridiculous amount of thanks to [AtypicalOwl](http://archiveofourown.org/users/AtypicalOwl/pseuds/AtypicalOwl), [snuggalong](http://archiveofourown.org/users/snuggalong), and [themerrygentleman](http://archiveofourown.org/users/themerrygentleman) for beta-reading as well as letting me ~~traumatize you~~ idea-bounce all the painful things that became this story. I love you all so much.
> 
> FYI, T'haiir is a [Hector's dolphin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hector%27s_dolphin). I am so sorry, tiny dolphin R.


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